


The New Normal

by wellthen



Category: Empire Records (1995)
Genre: Donuts, F/F, Femslash, Post-Movie(s), Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 07:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthen/pseuds/wellthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Wow, Gina, you look tired!" she had said.  "Long night blowing every guy in the band?"  Gina deposited the amp she was carrying next to the register and rolled her eyes.  "Sorry, what was that, Alanis?  I forgot how to speak Angst while I was away." </p>
<p>Deb sneered, she sneered, and somehow, she felt better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Normal

Somehow, it didn't take long for everything to feel back to normal at Empire Records. For three months, Gina partied with rock musicians she'd only ever seen flipping through Rolling Stone, sang in bars and concert halls all over the country, and collected well hung groupies from coast to coast. 

But somehow, three weeks after Berko's van had pulled up to Empire, it all seemed distant as a dream. Tripping in the bathroom had turned back into cleaning the bathroom, partying with The Gin Blossoms turned back into dusting magazine covers that had The Gin Blossoms on them. Her punk rock fairy tale was over, and the powerful, in control way she felt on tour vanished along with it. 

Everyone at Empire seemed the same in a way that was both comforting and alienating. Mark still played his terrible alien music and laughed at inappropriate moments, Joe, though thrilled to own the store, was as grumpy as ever, the new kid was still a screechy perv, and Lucas, sweet Lucas, continued to sound more like a fortune cookie than a 22 year old. 

Even with Corey and AJ gone, things seemed way more the same than they were different. Everyday she felt more like regular old slutty Empire Gina than she felt like Rock Star Glam Queen Gina. She wondered if this inertia was why Berko always seemed so tripped out all the time when he was back from tour.   
The inertia, plus all the drugs. 

Deb was the same too, but for some reason Deb's sameness felt reassuring rather than bleak or paralyzing. Deb had been working the register when Berko's van pulled up three weeks ago, the whole band traipsing in with equipment in tow. Gina hadn't taken a shower or slept since Indianapolis, but somehow, Deb's mock excitement to see them was comforting. "Wow, Gina, you look tired!" she had said. "Long night blowing every guy in the band?" Gina deposited the amp she was carrying next to the register and rolled her eyes. "Sorry, what was that, Alanis? I forgot how to speak Angst while I was away." 

Deb sneered, she sneered, and somehow, she felt better.

But after a while, Deb somehow didn't seem the same. The more Gina felt back to normal, the more her interactions with Deb seemed... abnormal. She avoided eye contact, Deb avoided eye contact, easy jabs about her skirt length or Deb's taste in music were overlooked. 

Until one night when the two of them worked closing together (Joe had started playing drums again on the weekend at the bar down the street), when things got really weird. Gina put on a Better Than Ezra track just to set Deb off ("Christ! If you want to play music that will make people want to kill themselves, why don't you just borrow a CD from Mark?"), and Deb had no reaction. She just continued to file everyone's pay stubs.   
"Do you... like this song?" Gina asked, hoping for a late but reparatively disgusted reaction.  
Deb looked bewildered, staring at her for a second. She had started shaving one side of her head as her hair grew back to its normal length, giving her more of a lopsided punk look more than a Sinead. It looked good.   
"Oh, yeah. This is fine." She continued her filing, and Gina felt a sense of unease. Deb didn't have anything mean to say about her music taste, her clothes, or her promiscuity? Why not? 

"You know, Berko played me one of the tracks you recorded on tour." Deb said absently, continuing to file. "You're pretty good." 

The wheels turned in Gina's head. No wonder Deb was being weird. She thought Gina had slept with Berko. Ew. 

"We didn't hook up, if that's what you're thinking. I have better taste than that- or, at the very least, better taste than you do." 

Deb looked horrified, and it was weird: Gina had only ever seen her look bored, pissed, or one of the emotions on the spectrum between the two. 

"No, I uh- no. I just liked the song. You sound good on that one acoustic track. 

Gina stared at her. It was an authentic, front handed compliment. "Thanks. Hey, any chance you contracted syphilis or some form of disease that causes a personality changing high fever?"

Deb sneered at her. "You're much more likely to catch that type of crotch rot than I would." 

Much better. Much more normal. Gina put her hand to her mouth, then crossed to Deb, putting her hand on Deb's forehead. "Are you sure? Because the only thing that would make you be nice to me is some sort of rare disease...." Wait. This was not more normal. It felt weird to be touching Deb's face, to be so close to her. Why did it feel so weird to be touching Deb? She was just joking about the fever thing, but suddenly her hand felt sweaty, her pulse beating like she was onstage. 

Whatever was making it feel weird to touch Deb was probably also what made Deb reach across the file drawer to kiss her. And it was probably what made Gina kiss her back, pulling Deb's hair while her boobs pressed into the weird metal lining of the file cabinet. Deb shoved the drawer into the cabinet with a loud metal THUMP that made them both jump, and Deb pulled away. 

Deb stared at her for a second, jaw clenched. "I gotta get going. I'll see you." She grabbed her coat and her helmet with lightning speed and stomped out the back door before Gina could even gather a "um" or a "uh" to stop her. Just as suddenly as she had been kissing Deb, Gina was alone in the back of Empire, feeling shittier than she had ever felt post a kiss, no matter the aftermath. How could weirdo outcast Deb, who was neither a hot guy, nor even a particularly hot girl, make her feel so shitty? 

"Because Deb is Deb," her brain responded. "duh."

-

"Well, it doesn't not make sense," said Corey on the phone after a long pause. The significant geographic distance from her father and her involvement with Boston's feminist zine scene had given Corey a much more mellow perspective on life, particularly after she ditched AJ for a bearded grad student working on his thesis in Eastern philosophy. "I mean, it doesn't exactly... it's not.... I mean, I'm not surprised." 

Gina chewed on a nail and tried to decide if she should be offended. "Not that I ever thought you were gay! I thought that about Deb, sometimes, especially after the head shaving, but not you. I don't know, you two just always seemed... there was a lot of banter. if it makes you happy, it makes you happy."

Gina sighed. "It's not making me happy, it making me weird. What kind of gross lesbo kisses me? More importantly, what kind of gross lesbo storms out on me after kissing me?" 

Corey paused again, and Gina could tell she was thinking. Stupid Corey, always thinking. Sometimes when she was thoughtful and considerate about Gina's problems like this Gina missed her old ragey freakouts.   
"Well, do you think you could talk to her?"   
Gina definitely missed the ragey freakouts. 

The next morning, Gina brought donuts and smiled a lot. It made everyone very uncomfortable, except for Lucas, who nodded at her, a eclair in one hand. "We must learn to tame the fear, because it is only within us." Gina beamed and patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you Lucas, I like the chocolate ones best too." Even if she wasn't the Rock Star Glam Queen she was on tour, she could still channel those fearless vibes now. 

Deb's shift didn't start until 1:00, which gave her three hours to practice said channelling, which in practice, mostly meant staring at the clock and playing Alanis Morissette on repeat. When Deb finally did storm in, determinedly avoiding eye contact, Gina jumped the counter, white box of donuts in hand, a hybrid woman/baked goods barricade between Deb and the back room. 

"Hi! Hello! I'm Gina, maybe you remember me? We kissed last night and then you ran away. Would you like to talk about this over a donut, or maybe a croissant?" 

Every time Deb took a step in one direction, the donut box blocked the next step. Unable to proceed without acknowledging Gina or the donuts, Deb glowered. "I don't want to talk to you."

Mark, who had been dusting the speakers, crept quietly out of the front room. Gina beamed false brightly. "Well, then you should have thought of that last night. Care to follow me to the listening booths, where no one can hear you scream? I'll even let you have the last donut with chocolate sprinkles." Deb continued to glower, but followed, her shoulders hunched, still not making eye contact. 

Once they were in one of the booths, Gina realized she hadn't planned for this conversation post-blockade. Her glam rock bravado faded. She dropped the box on the stool and hugged her torso, staring at the ceiling. "look. I don't want to yell at you. I just... what happened?"

Deb also looked at the ceiling. There were some really fascinating cracks up there, one in particular that almost looked like a T-Rex.   
"I don't know. I. I missed you when you left. I thought I missed Berko, but I missed you." 

Gina laughed, a little too loudly. 'Well, that makes sense. With both me and Corey gone, who was left for you to hate??"  
Deb looked embarrassed. "Yeah, but it was more than that. I missed you. I missed making fun of you, I missed making fun of other people with you, I missed the fucking horrible female vocalists you play when it's your turn on the speakers... I missed you. And I couldn't figure out why, and then I could. Can this conversation be over now?"

Deb still wouldn't meet her eyes until Gina touched her cheek, almost experimentally. They stared at each other, a mixture of defiance and confusion and a little fear.   
When Gina spoke next, it was Rock Star Glam Queen Gina who spoke for her. "So would you wanna hang out after closing next Wednesday?"

Deb considered her for a moment, then crossed her arms. "Fine. But the playlist for our next Wednesday shift is a Sinead Power Hour."  
Gina smirked- "if that's what it takes,"- and leaned in for a kiss.

It didn't feel normal at all, but, as both Rock Star Glam Queen Gina and regular Gina had decided, normal was overrated.


End file.
